The Girl Who Falls Down Stairs - fic by Nanoochka - It's been a while, so have a meme.

4 - I've had some great first dates, but I have to say my first date with my ex Damian was the best - we literally just walked around the city for 6 hours talking about music. We stopped for drinks and food, too, but mostly it was spontaneous and aimless and fun.

27 - My life's aspirations come down to doing something that make a difference professionally, like standing behind important and innovative policy at work; then there's the matter of publishing SOMETHING. I'd also like to do it all while standing on my own two feet financially, emotionally, etc.

39 - A couple weeks ago a family friend told me I'm delightful, which I thought was just lovely, but I think the nicest thing was what my dad always used to say to me: "You're my favourite person." It might just be nostalgia on my part but it was always heartwarming.

<3

15 - OH GOD. I'll just stick with my favourite song ever: "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin. It never gets old. But I'm also loving "Bedroom Hymns" by Florence + the Machine.

17 - A great smile and a happy disposition are probably the two most attractive qualities I can think of. I love being around people who make me want to be happier myself.

21 - My father's wife accused me of not loving him the day he died. It's a long story but she was blatantly after his money and as a result drove a rift between us, and that knowledge took something that was already unspeakably awful and made it that much worse. It makes me clench my fists to this day. :/

25 - My weight. I'm a recovered/recovering anorexic who could probably stand to lose a few pounds (the trauma to my metabolism resulted in some uncontrolled weight gain once I actually started, y'know... EATING again), but I'm pretty undecided as to what to do about it. I know that sounds really trivial, but what probably constitutes a pretty easy decision for most people is actually tied to potentially (and historically) life-threatening factors for me. So I often debate whether to try to lose it or live with it.

Sorry for taking so long to answer.

I don't think there's a single ana person out there who isn't also a control freak; at the end of the day, control is the only thing it comes down to. It wasn't so much that I was acting out, but I was always overweight as a kid and in high school; sometime in university I went on a diet and started losing weight, and I guess I got addicted to the feeling. Boys started to notice me, and I was addicted to that, too; I must have started to feel, deep down, that how I looked was the only valuable thing about me, because I put myself through a lot of really shitty relationship situations, including emotional and psychological abuse, cheating, and a miscarriage (as a result of my physical health because of the anorexia). But through it all I kept reminding myself how awesome and skinny I was. And it was something I could control, like you said, when everything else was an absolutely horrible mess. About six years later I started to lose that control because my body went into starvation mode; everything I ate, even a piece of gum it seemed, was making me gain weight. That was probably the worst period of anorexia for me and when I started experimenting with throwing up. Then my dad died and it... kind of saved me. I didn't have the emotional wherewithal to deal with that and also keep hurting myself, so I stopped. I still struggle every day with the need to go back to those ways, but so far I've been pretty good about resisting and trying to appreciate myself as I am. If anything, I take a lot less shit from people these days who aren't able to do the same.

24 - I actually don't like making really long-term plans; I think I did a lot of that in my teens and early 20s, so that I now find myself with a lot less freedom than other people my age (house, job, etc.). So my near-future plans include going back to the UK for a visit in the spring and making concrete travel plans. Slightly more long-term, I'd like to buy a bigger house in the next couple years so I can have a room dedicated just to my personal library. :D

19 - I love plain ice cream flavours, but there's a kind made locally from a dessert place here in Toronto called Honey Vanilla that I absolutely love. But I love honey in just about anything. :)

35 - I love spontaneous dates, and I'm very low-maintenance, so as I mentioned in a reply above, I look very favourably upon wandering the city with someone I like and getting to know them. There's a lot of potential to find fun activities along the way, and I consider it an important trait to be able to roll with the punches and still have a good time.

43 - My wisdom teeth: I have to get them out next Friday and I'm a little nervous. Dentists terrify me.